Jack Stauber and the rise of the uncanny internet.

A little girl made of clay picks up a hamburger and dances on a dining table. Her family cheers and sings about how they see her, and now touching her dinner is a cause for celebration. This is an early scene in Jack Stauber’s OPAL, his 2020 short film made for adult swim. What makes this short so special is the feeling of oddly rehearsed affection, like a television commercial trying to convince you everything is fine.

That uneasy feeling is prevalent through Jack Stauber’s work. Childlike imagery and household objects with faces become unsettling in his own way without it going head first into horror. His contribution to the uncanny internet was a combination that has emerged in popularity in recent years. Handmade animation, damaged looking video, and catchy pop music.

Stauber’s music deserves as much attention as his animation. Albums including Pop food (2017) and HiLo (2018) show Stauber as a songwriter with a strong ear for melodies beneath light distortion, static, and nostalgic production. In a 2018 NewRetroWave interview, he described thinking about pop as a language.The catchiness of it helps his stranger ideas reach people in larger quantities.

His popularity surged through TikTok. By November 2020, Alternative Press was crediting Staubers song “Buttercup” as his breakthrough on the platform. “Oh Klahoma,” also from Pop Food, became a sensation during the ghost photo trend, where people would dress as bedsheet ghosts with sunglasses and do homemade photoshoots and post them on social media.

That mass circulation helps convey his connection to the internet in a special way. The songs could reach people who had never watched his animations, accompanying unique imagery that mixed humor, loneliness, disparity, and nostalgia. This atmosphere across his work helped establish himself in his own way and shape himself as an artist.

Jack Stauber's micropop moved toward a new approach, suited toward short-form viewing. He would make short musical sketches that could introduce a character, establish a hook, and end before explaining everything. “Baby Hotline” stands under a minute long and has enough personality to stand on its own.

His visuals accompany his music complementarily. Food becomes sentient and conversations can turn into songs. Scenes follow emotional associations rather than realistic rules. The effect at which Stauber makes his content resembles a dream in which something impossible feels somewhat reasonable until you try explaining it afterward.

Stauber's homemade appearance comes from his own unique but modest working methods. In a 2018 process breakdown, Stauber showed how he drew with a mouse in MS Paint for his 2d animations, separated character pieces, and assembled them in Adobe Premiere. He told NewRetroWave that he sometimes recorded dialogue before settling on the design of a character, listening back with his eyes closed to imagine it. He also described using a crinkled water bottle as a crash cymbal sound. 

His clay figures and digital drawings remain unpolished in their construction. Rough movement gives his work personality. An unusual voice makes a simple drawing feel a bit more specific. Those imperfections work because the timing and characterization give them purpose. 

The VHS texture had a physical basis too. Stauber's process post described recording digital footage onto tape, then playing it back and capturing it digitally again. Blurred edges and the unstable color make a brand new animation resemble an old public access broadcast. Combined with familiar settings and cheerful voices, the damaged image suggests something you kinda remember seeing on TV years ago. That uncanny feeling becomes part of the experience.

His larger films carry that approach into fully sustained stories. Adult Swim’s SHOP: A Pop Opera (2019) turns grocery shopping to multiple musical encounters that deal with topics like morality and routine. OPAL (2020) uses its false sense of security in a welcoming family to tell a darker story about childhood neglect. Both connect his odd imagery to recognizable feelings. Even when his work becomes frightening, that discomfort starts with something ordinary. A smile that might seem forced, reassurance that feels rehearsed, or a cheerful song that carries distress in his lyrical contents.

Stauber's work belongs to a long history of surreal and deliberately rough around the edges art. He has cited Bruce Bickgord, the Residents, and Rugrats among his influences. Weirdcore and Analog-looking internet art developed through wider communities because of Stauber's unique multi-media art. His appeal is in how personal his work feels. You can see the finger prints pressed into the clay. His drawings are simple and crooked. Voices wobble without being corrected. In a world where digital tools make everything easier to smooth out, Stauber preserves the imperfections and makes them something worth keeping.